Page 13 of Cruel Games

FOUR

COYOTE

“For the last time,Dingo, I didn’t leave my fucking bat at the bar! Yours was out in the hallway, and mine should have been with it!”

Those two had been at it for the last hour, back and forth about a missing bat, like it was the end of the world.

I hated being woken up in the middle of the day by two morons arguing. Jackal might be like my brother, but he was the annoying one that always got you into trouble and managed to somehow always irritate you to murderous levels.

He reminded me of a few wild dogs I knew.

Like a stray who’d been outside too long, he learned to survive, and when he felt threatened or ignored, like a teenager in the pack who challenged the leader, he snapped and snarled and bared his sharp fangs in the hopes of getting his way.

This time, though, he’d gone too far.

I’d just barely managed to pass out before he started up again, waking me for a third time in the same night. Day. Whatever it was.

Time wasn’t relevant when your schedule was as fucked up as ours.

The cold air chilled me bone-deep as I threw off my blankets and marched, bare-ass naked, to the door of my room, snarling like the feral dog they always mocked me for being. I said nothing as I gripped Jackal’s collar and jerked him along behind me, damn near throwing him into the hall and slamming the front door behind him. For extra measure, I threw the deadbolt into the locked position and blew a puff of air at the stray hair dangling in front of my forehead.

Dingo laughed like an idiot as I marched by him, fumbling for his phone to no doubt take a picture.

I indulged him and flipped him the bird as I ducked into my room, slamming the door behind me. Falling back asleep would suck, but at least I might stand a chance at a little bit of rest with Jackal locked out and Dingo placated for thetime being.

Of course,hoping for sleep was pointless. Dingo caved in and let the fucker back in, and no amount of pillows over my head would drown out the asshole banging on my door for ten minutes straight in his frustration. I ignored him, but that didn’t deter him in the slightest. He only wandered off in search of new things to occupy his time when his hands grew tired.

I gave up on rest and slinked into the bathroom; my mood spoiled like two-month-old milk. Soap stung my eyes as I flung myself into a scrub-down, trying to wash away the feeling of wrongness on my skin.

It was the same every day. I’d felt this way since the day I wandered out of the woods and into the hands of humans who only saw me as a paycheck. A means to an end.

They never loved me. Like an orphaned cub, I bounced from house to house, only being tolerated, acting out for attention, until one day, the attention I got landed me in some sort of kid jail. When I came out, I knew I couldn’t go back in and survive it with my sanity intact. So, at the first chance, I ran from my next home and returned to the wilderness, hoping I could pick up where I’d left off.

I should have known that was impossible.

It had been years. Pups that were nothing but whelps when I left were now running their own packs, and all the older wolves that had raised me were dead and gone, or defeated and alone. There was no family waiting there for me anymore. They all moved on, and I was nothing but a memory, another human who would cause them harm and bring destruction and death to their packs.

Thankfully, I was okay with being on my own for a little while. I had enough life skills in the wilderness, remembered just enough to get by. And just when I was afraid I might actuallystarve to death or freeze in the middle of the woods, Jackal and his buddies came across me, and brought me home.

Home, to them, was a fucking warehouse filled with heavy drug users, alcoholics, and transients, all looking to keep a roof over their heads and get somewhere better. None of them would ever make it out of this four-block radius before they overdosed or died of exposure, or worse.

The knob creaked and squeaked as the room filled with steam, hot water splashing up against my forearms as I prepared to hop into the spray. I’d grown numb to the sting a long time ago. Grown numb to a lot of things.

Jackal didn’t see the same dead-end future for us. And as fucked up as he was, he still managed to keep myself and him from starving or freezing. He was always careful not to leave me alone in a dangerous situation. And when he clawed his way out of that hellhole, he dragged me kicking and screaming with him.

Life with a mattress and a kitchen and a grocery store wasn’t half bad, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. At least not while he was actively destroying what little schedule I had left.

My sleep was precious. It was the only thing that set me off these days. And I was at my limit.

One fucking day. Just one fucking day where I could sleep allthe way through a night.

Was that too much to ask for?

I watched the rivulets of water run down my skin, diving in the divots of my well-honed muscles, curling around the swell of each of my abs, teasing the edge of my cock as the trails of water curled around a thigh and raced to the drain at my feet. I shook my head like the dog I’d once been and dispelled those thoughts. I wasn’t allowing myself to think of the past. Wouldn’t entertain the idea of falling back into being a depressed shell.

My life, my dreams, had all raced down the drain as quickly as this water. My hopes had been dashed, turned to ice in my veins as quickly as my water lost its warmth.

And now I was stuck in this hellscape with two morons who thought their morning was best spent arguing over a fuckingbat.

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